The C++ Programming Language: Special Edition (3rd Edition)

I love the book, to me it's like reading a novel, Bjarne's style is excellent and he answers all the questions that come to your mind while reading, he focuses not only on the language features but also how to utilize it to design better software.

this is my third C++ book to read, and it's the best one I've read, but i wouldn't recommend it as a first book to learn C++ though, but you definitely have to read it at some point. It's worth it, no matter how experienced you are, you will learn a lot of things.

This is my second copy of Stroustrup. My previous copy got borrowed on a permanent basis.

The C++ Programming Language is the definition of the C++ computing language by its creator. As such, this is the book to turn to if you have any queries about obscure or sometime not so obscure language syntax. This is not to say that all compilers are fully compliant with the language specification.

I believe that anyone who works with the C++ on anything more than a casual basis should have a copy of this book, just not mine this time ;)

This book is both a text book for learning C++ and a reference book to consult whenever tricky C++ interogations arise. I would qualify the writting style as academic and very dense in details. It has the merit to be very accurate and to cover almost every aspects of the programming language but in the same time, it is the very same reason why not a lot of people that I know went through the book from one cover to the other. This book is for serious reading and is not a fun easy reading before going to sleep. The writting style might intimidate people that have never had experience for C++. For that reason, I would recommand newbies to look elsewhere for a first book to be introduced to C++ Accelerated C++: Practical Programming by Example from Andrew Koenig would be a good suggestion. However, for any intermediate to expert programmers, this book is a must. To me, reading this book after few years of C++ usage helped me to fully integrate all the details of the concepts that I was already using on a daily basis and this had the effect of bringing my C++ understanding to a new level.

This book is great.The C++ Programming Language (Special 3rd Edition) Dr. Stroustrup explains all aspects of the programming language with easy to understand examples. I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting to learn how to program in C++. Remember, this book is written by the man who wrote the C++ programming language.

*The C++ Programming Language* is the standard reference for C++. How could it not be? But getting any use out of it requires a little reflection on what "standard" means. It means that the book's organization reflects the historical "migration path" to C++ out of C, not its contemporary context of use amongst Java and scripting languages. The book's author, inventor of C++, claims that it's best to learn C++ before C, so as not to settle into bad habits: but the presentation here is almost totally motivated by improvements and changes in C++ relative to its predecessor language, and does not contain that background information which is contained in Kernighan & Ritchie.

I had this book for some years, and got absolutely no use out of it: then I learned C, and I saw how the exposition was well-motivated for someone who knew precisely that language. And well-motivated it is: Stroustrup writes clearly and elegantly about the specific differences that give C++ its distinctive character -- the expository value of this book should not be discounted by assuming it is purely a "reference" work. But if your task is to learn programming itself while learning C++, this is the wrong choice (no great hardship, since there are a number of alright books going into various levels of detail about how to do exactly that).

The interplay between C and C++ is important for another feature of the book: Stroustrup's strongly prescriptive programming guidelines, interspersed throughout the chapters and reiterated at chapter's end, which aim to instruct the C++ programmer regarding the maximally enlightened use of various constructs. From my (somewhat limited) experience, these rules of thumb proposed by Stroustrup are often not followed in practice: actual C++ style occupies an intermediate position between the paradigms of this book and traditional C style.

This is not a "snapshot" of the C++ language in use, but it is of course a very important document concerning the heart of the language, available at a reasonable price. (Final comment: I have owned two distinct copies of the special hardback edition, and contrary to other reviews I have found it to be very well-manufactured by contemporary standards.)